Short Stories and Organizing

So I'm still about halfway through "The Language of the Unheard" and while I'm wrapping that up, I've decided to try my hand at some short stories. I haven't written many short stories since high school, where I used to write them almost exclusively. I've heard they're a good way to get your foot in the door and if you get them published in a magazine, they might even make you a little cash!

So my first one is entitled "The Banks of Belronan" and it is a classic tragic romance about selkies, the mythical seal women of Ireland. I'm writing as a frame story with an old woman telling a tale she was told as a child. We'll see how it turns out.

I also finally organized all my little scribblings of story ideas and tidbits into Microsoft OneNote and I feel so much better now. I had to go through two notebooks, the notes section of my phone and countless random pieces of paper to find them all, but they're all sorted by type into the one program now. There's places for me to add more notes to them later on and pictures of things that inspired me etc. I am including an amazing picture of the Aurora Borialis that just keeps me in awe. Anyway, now I don't have to worry about losing things and when I want to find an idea for a story, I just have one place to look. In fact, the selkie story was one that I had thought of a while back and forgotten about until I did this.

Aaron is going camping with his brothers for a few days next week so I'll have to house to myself. I plan on eating lots of cheese-filled foods (he's lactose intolerant but I love cheese), doing a lot of writing, staying up ridiculously late, sleeping in, and watching plenty of chick flicks.

Noodles and Weird Guys

So I just have a few random musings to share with you at the moment. First off, an amusing story.

I was on the bus (the number 5 from Greenwood if anyone is interested) home from work today and my snooping, eavesdropping ears (notice I blame my ears!) caught on to a fairly one sided conversation happening one seat up and to my right. The lady near the window was probably in her thirties, reading a book and the gentleman sitting next to her was Asian and spoke very poor English. He had apparently said something I didn't hear but her reply was, "No, it's just that people usually don't talk to other people on the bus." After saying this, she promptly went back to reading. Now anyone else would have taken this as "shut up," but not this gentleman. For the next ten minutes he peppered her with questions, and she replied the absolute bare minimum amount she could get away with, while making it very clear that she didn't want to have a conversation. Every couple of questions he would apparently run out of things to say and simply say "You're very pretty." or something along those lines and she would pause and say, "Um, thank you."

This was all very amusing to me, until she got off the bus about halfway to my stop. He stood up to let her off and somehow caught my eye. I quickly turned away, hoping he hadn't taken that as a good sign, but it was too late. Instead of sitting down in the seat that the woman had been sitting in, by the window, as most people would have, he proceeded to sit down next to me, and attempt to make conversation for the rest of the trip to me. I was relieved when my stop came, although I have to give him credit for effort. He was very determined to meet someone on the bus!

The second thing I have to share is simply a tidbit about me. Aaron is lactose intolerant, so on the occasional nights when I am home and he has to work, I always try to indulge my cheese cravings as much as possible, usually in the form of pasta/fettuccine sauce or pizza. Tonight it is Buitoni Three Cheese Tortellini and Vodka sauce. YUMMY!!!